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Silent Spring

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Silent Spring was written by Rachel Carson and published in September, 1962. The book is widely credited with launching the environmentalism movement in the West.

When Silent Spring was published, Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read, spending several weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. Silent Spring is credited with the ban of the environmentally persistent pesticide DDT[1] in 1972 in the United States.

The book claimed detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. She proposed a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to DDT, claiming that DDT had been found to cause thinner egg shells and result in reproductive problems and death.

Support

History professor Gary Kroll commented, "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring played a large role in articulating ecology as a 'subversive subject'— as a perspective that cut against the grain of materialism, scientism, and the technologically engineered control of nature."[2]

According to Time magazine in 1999, within a year or so of its publication, "all but the most self-serving of Carson's attackers were backing rapidly toward safer ground. In their ugly campaign to reduce a brave scientist's protest to a matter of public relations, the chemical interests had only increased public awareness.”

Carson had made it clear she was not advocating the banning or complete withdrawal of helpful pesticides, but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use, with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on the entire ecosystem. However, some critics asserted that she was calling for the elimination of all pesticides, despite the fact that Silent Spring was positively reviewed by many outside of the academic field such as agricultural science and chemical science, and it became a runaway best seller both in the USA and overseas.

Anectodal evidence may support Carson's claim. For example, chemicals that are persistent in the environment accumulate in body fat and are carried by women in their breast tissue, and studies by U.S. and Canadian scientists have found that women with higher levels of organochlorines in their blood have four to ten times the risk of breast cancer than those with lower levels.[3] Organochlorines are hydrocarbon-based chemicals containing chlorines like DDT. Moreover, "diminishing rates of breast cancer in Israel have paralleled a precipitous decline in environmental contamination with DDT and benzene hexachloride."[4] Thus far, human data about the link between these chemicals and breast cancer are inconclusive. One study showed that women with breast cancer have the same or lower levels of pesticide residue in their system than women without the disease.[5]

Criticism

Even before Silent Spring was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962, there was strong opposition to it. According to Time in 1999:

"Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a "hysterical woman" unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto, Velsicol, American Cyanamid—indeed, the whole chemical industry—duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media."

The book attracted hostile attention from scientists, commentators and the chemical industry. In general, her book did not receive positive reviews from the science field. One of Carson's claims was that DDT is a carcinogen. Subsequent studies have failed to demonstrate a link between DDT and cancer. On the contrary:

  • In one study, primates were fed 33,000 times more DDT than the estimated exposure of adult humans in 1969. No conclusive link with cancer was detected. Source: Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology 1999; 125(3-4):219-25
  • A study of 692 women, half of them control subjects, over a period of twenty years, established no correlation between serum DDE and breast cancer. DDE is a metabolite of DDT, and correlates with DDT exposure.[5]
  • A study examined 35 workers exposed to 600 times the average DDT exposure levels over a period of 9 to 19 years. No elevated cancer risk was observed in these workers. Source: ER Laws, 1967. Archives of Environmental Health 15:766-775
  • "DDT has been conservatively credited with saving some 100 million lives" - Todd Seavey, Director of Publications - American Council on Science and Health[6]
  • In another study, humans voluntarily ingested 35 mg of DDT daily for about two years, and were then tracked for several years afterward. No elevated risk was observed. Source: Hayes, W. 1956. JAMA 162:890-897

Biochemist and former chemical industry spokesman Robert White-Stevens stated, If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth.[7]

In a recent essay, "The Harm That Pressure Groups Can Do", British politician Dick Taverne was damning in his criticism of Carson:

Carson didn't seem to take into account the vital role (DDT) played in controlling the transmission of malaria by killing the mosquitoes that carry the parasite (...) It is the single most effective agent ever developed for saving human life (...) Rachel Carson is a warning to us all of the dangers of neglecting the evidence-based approach and the need to weight potential risk against benefit: it can be argued that the anti-DDT campaign she inspired was responsible for almost as many deaths as some of the worst dictators of the last century. [8]

  • In the computer game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, the Iraqi "Desolator" unit poisons the ground and enemy soldiers and has a soundbite saying "it will be a silent spring".

See also

Notes

  1. ^ EPA reference retrieved April 26, 2006
  2. ^ Gary Kroll, "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring:A Brief History of Ecology as a Subversive Subject", retrieved April 26, 2006
  3. ^ "Breast Cancer: Is It the Environment?, Ms. Magazine, April/May 2000
  4. ^ Wolff, Mary S. et al, "Blood Levels of Organochlorine Residues and Risk of Breast Cancer," Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 85(8): 648-52, April 21, 1993. cited in NOHA NEWS, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, (Summer 1993) retrieved April 26, 2006
  5. ^ a b "Cancer Epidemiological Biomarkers", Prevention, 1999 June; 8(6):525-32
  6. ^ American Council on Science and Health, "The DDT Ban Turns 30: Millions Dead of Malaria Because of Ban, More Deaths Likely", published June 1, 2002, retrieved April 26, 2006
  7. ^ PBS Frontline program, Fooling with Nature, retrieved April 26, 2006
  8. ^ * Taverne, Dick "The Harm That Pressure Groups Can Do", collected in Panic Nation, 2005, edited by Stanley Feldman and Vincent Marks, ISBN 1844541223.

Sources

  • Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), Mariner Books, 2002, ISBN 0618249060
  • Graham, Frank. Since Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), Fawcett 1976 reprint: ISBN 0449231410
  • Silent Spring Revisited, American Chemical Society, 1986: ISBN 0317597981, 1987: ISBN 0841209812
  • Litmans, Brian and Jeff Miller, Silent Spring Revisited: Pesticide Use And Endangered Species, Diane Publishing Co., 2004, ISBN 0756744393 (67 p.)
  • Lear, Linda. Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997, Owl Books paperback 1998: ISBN 0805034285
  • Murphy, Priscilla Coit, What A Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring, University of Massachusetts Press, 2005, ISBN 1558494766
  • United States Environmental Protection Agency "What is DDT?" retrieved April 26, 2006
  • 'DDT Chemical Backgrounder', National Safety Council Retrieved May 30 2005
  • Report on Carcinogens, Fifth Edition; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Toxicology Program (1999).
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